Scott Stowell Does Some Very Good Design

We went to a party last night at Good’spop-up store here in New York where we met editor Morgan Clendaniel, publisher Max Schorr, creative director Casey Caplowe and designer Tyler Lang. So it was only fitting that at today’s Cause/Effect we’d see Scott Stowell of Open, whose firm has been the driving creative force, along with Caplowe’s team, in cranking out this fine mag (which as you can see above, kinda, was shelved with the gun mags when the design issue featured an AK-47 on the cover).

The philosophy of Good’s design is “totally mainstream, to preach to the non-converted,” drawing from great old mags like Esquire, Colors, Time Out, and even some of the extinct features from Wired. Built into the magazine are all sorts of opportunities to work with illustrators and designers, on variety of visual devices–games, if you will–to let them play.

This is how Good works for readers, Stowell says. They engage you with the form, give you content, and if you’re paying attention, you get rewarded with little visual details. Example: We love the icons that break down the content into categories, but had to admit we never really looked at them. Take a closer look next time you read the magazine, and you’ll see that icon for health, for example, is not what you’d expect.

They also work with readers, engaging them in the Good Projects, which are open-source creative projects that are found on the back page (they’re all still active, by the way). Check out the good design/bad design project.

Good is very design-savvy; they are the only mag we’ve ever heard of to actually print a typographic correction, stating that a word on the spine should have been in roman not italics.

In fact, Good is so design savvy, they’re having a design party with HauteGREEN at that pop-up store in New York on Tuesday night. If you’re in the hood, be sure to stop by. We hear Allan Chochinov will be presenting highlights from Core77’s gift guide. We hope the dolls are coming, too.

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